What will the Women's World Cup effect be?

On Sunday 17 July, history was made when the ladies of Japan's national soccer team became world champions, beating the USWNT in a penalty shoot-out. It was an epic match,  in any case it gathered a lot of media attention, but what could the consequences be for Japanese advertisers acting internationally?

Probably not much, if nobody acts on it anyway. Japan has traditionally been a very inward-looking market, and is weak on (international) PR. To illustrate, I searched very hard for commercials related the Japanese soccer team on YouTube a few days ago, but I couldn't find any. I did find quite some starring the US team.

According to Tetsuya Honda, CEO of strategic PR firm Blue Current Japan, the craze surrounding the women national team should be seized as an opportunity to promote Japan and its culture. He writes this in a blog post for cnet Japan.

Why? Because Japan received a disproportionate amount of attention for winning the tournament. As we know, Japan had to endure a disaster on March 11, and many viewers, media and soccer fans recognized the victory as some sort of closure for the things that had happened. ESPN called the Japanese team the "team of destiny", and other media used words like "fate" and "destiny" to describe the happening.

There is some amount of magical "air" surrounding the Japanese victory. Struck by disaster, the team worked very hard and played with very little fouls (they also won the fair play award), and it came back twice from behind against a team that was technically superior, to win in a penalty shoot-out in a dramatic way. It seems unreal.

This "air" is something temporary that Japanese marketers and PR agencies should capitalize on. The sudden switch from negative news coming from the land of rising sun to positive news is something that doesn't happen this often. That is what Mr. Honda writes, and I tend to agree with him.

And if Japanese marketers won't do it, wouldn't this be an opportunity for any other international advertiser to promote Japanese products? Beyond the obvious connection with the victory in soccer, one could think of branding Japanese products with an increased focus on some sort of mysticism, kindness and (female) beauty.

Don't you think?